Chương 28: Reborn as the Dragon: — Chapter 28 - Subduing the Magical Beasts

What lay before Su Nian was an extremely detailed map of the magical beast territory. From their current position, the deeper you went, the stronger the beasts got, though they seemed to cap out around level 20. Beyond that lay the Silvermoon Mountains. The former Kobold chieftain had never been capable of scouting anything that dangerous. For now, though, it was enough. With the Kobold tribe as the center, three magical creature communities surrounded them: the Blaze Rabbits, the Cockatrices, and the Spearboars.

Deeper still lived the Gnoll tribe, which had bullied the Kobolds plenty in the past. The mountain wolves were nomadic, always drifting. The Silvermoon Wolves were genuinely rare, the few Su Nian had run into that day had been pure chance. Every one of these communities had a leader. Su Nian stroked his chin, turning it over, then looked at Bolikri.

"Gather every Kobold. Bring whatever you've got. When we move out, don't do anything else — just find every rabbit hole and block them. All of them." A moment later. Su Nian held the Blaze Rabbit leader up by one ear and studied it with a ferocious expression, seemingly deciding where to start biting. Around him, the Kobolds had assumed their natural state: thugs.

Armed with knives, spears, and clubs, they'd herded the ordinary Blaze Rabbits into a tight huddle, forcing them to curl up face-down on the ground with their paws over their heads. Any rabbit that so much as twitched got a hard kick or a spear jab in the backside. The Blaze Rabbit leader was a level 3, just slightly redder than the others. Honestly, it was kind of cute. One hundred and fifty HP. Skills: terrible.

It could spit a fireball and that was it, plus one bonus ability called Pack Command, which let it order the entire rabbit pack around. In practice, this was almost completely useless. These rabbits were basically the level 1 mobs you'd find outside any Starter Village. Their only merits were numbers, fast breeding, and being delicious. At this moment, the Blaze Rabbit leader hung suspended by its ears from Su Nian's fist, its plump little body curled in on itself, shaking. It had been pulling up carrots just fine.

Then somehow, without warning, it was surrounded by a pack of Kobolds and one enormously terrifying Black Dragon. When it tried to dive back into its burrow to escape, it made a despairing discovery: every single one of its hundred-odd holes had been sealed by those wretched Kobolds. So what if they're trap experts? The Blaze Rabbit leader stewed in its misfortune, but it had only just awakened to thought, and its new brain had enough sense to know better than to keep provoking the Black Dragon in front of it.

All it could do was stare up with those big red eyes, looking as pitiful as possible. Its bloodline inheritance told it: if you can't win, act cute. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"Ooh~ The bunny is so cute, I love it so much~" The Blaze Rabbit leader's gaze snapped to the Black Dragon's back, where a delicately beautiful elven girl was perched. Its heart leapt. It was saved. Its bloodline inheritance told it: elves are angels. The girl's next words nearly broke it entirely.

"Brother, how are we going to eat the bunny today~" Angels. Right. The Blaze Rabbit leader decided its ancestors had clearly suffered some kind of mass delusion.

"Anna, we're not eating rabbit today. We're going to be friends with the rabbits." Su Nian's voice was hoarse and rough, like paper dragged across gravel. The words themselves were perfectly friendly. To the Blaze Rabbit, they were indistinguishable from whispers rising out of the abyss.

"Blaze Rabbit leader. Listen carefully." Su Nian used Draconic to force his consciousness directly into the rabbit's skull.

"Starting today, you are my vassal. Every day, you will lead your rabbits on a five-kilometer run around the Kobold settlement. Afterward, under Bolikri's supervision, you will perform burpees and sit-ups — one hundred per set, ten sets total."

"As for what burpees and sit-ups are, I'll send trained Kobolds to demonstrate. Any objections? Hehehe..." The Blaze Rabbit leader nodded frantically, but Su Nian still had it by the ears, so the nod came out as a desperate forward kick. Su Nian didn't waste another second. He pressed a drop of his blood to the rabbit's forehead. It was absorbed instantly. In less than half an incense stick's time, a band of pitch-black scales had grown around the rabbit's neck, and its level jumped to 5.

The mark of Su Nian's contract, plain as anything.

"Your name is Bugs Bunny from now on. Stick with me and you won't be getting the short end." He set Bugs Bunny on the ground, satisfied, and gave it a friendly pat on the shoulder. After the Black Dragon and the Kobolds left, Bugs Bunny pried itself out of the dirt, shook off the shock, and immediately rounded up every Blaze Rabbit in the colony. It began the run around the Kobold caves without a moment's hesitation....

Su Nian then paid the Cockatrice leader (level 7) and the Spearboar leader (level 9) a visit in the same warmly nuclear fashion, assigning them the names Brother Chicken and Zhu Bajie respectively. Like the Blaze Rabbits, both groups were now required to run five kilometers around the Kobold caves every day. After the run, Brother Chicken had to lead its entire Cockatrice flock in hanging upside down from the trees and completing one thousand pull-ups. Zhu Bajie's group had it worse.

Su Nian had taken one look at the Spearboars and declared them too fat. Beyond the standard five-kilometer morning run, they were assigned five more kilometers every night, five hundred tree-ramming charges during the day, and fifty shuttle runs back and forth. An absurd scene took shape in the Silvermoon Forest. A herd of Blaze Rabbits sprinting in frantic circles around the Kobold cave. Behind them, Cockatrices squawking and thrashing their wings through desperate gasps.

Behind those, Spearboars huffing and grunting with every labored stride.... While this collection of magical beasts was being forced onto the path of Master Saitama, Su Nian had already led his Kobolds into Gnoll territory. Compared to the Blaze Rabbits, the Cockatrices, and the Spearboars, Gnolls were a different category of problem entirely. They were chaotic evil by nature, savage, cunning humanoids who struck remote human settlements and border towns without warning or provocation.

Even within the Silvermoon Forest, they were undisputed apex bullies. They killed everything they caught, left no survivors, and ate what they killed. Legend had it that Gnolls had once been demon-bound, and they wore that history as a badge of honor. The Dragon Blood Contract worked best when the captive was willing. To bring the Gnolls to heel, there was going to be blood.

"Master, Gnolls are formidable. Individually they're not as strong as an Ettercap, but they're numerous, and they are cunning." Bolikri walked Su Nian through it carefully. Truthfully, it was barely containing its excitement. Those bastard Gnolls had been a plague on the Kobold tribe for as long as anyone could remember. Kobolds who wandered too far from the settlement had a habit of disappearing, killed and eaten.

Against large Gnoll raiding parties, the weak Kobolds had no real answer except to retreat into their tunnels and rely on every trap and trick they knew just to survive.

"The Gnoll leader is called the Alpha. It rules through strength and cunning, but it doesn't put itself forward. It won't expose itself willingly."

"When you find the biggest one — look for piercing marks on its body and strange trophies hanging from it. That's your Alpha." Bolikri held nothing back. Every secret it knew, it put on the table. ➤ Next: From Now On, Your Name Is Grey Wolf